PROVIDENCE — In the wake of revelations that the National Security Agency has assembled a massive database of domestic phone calls, the Rhode Island affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union is objecting...

By Paul Edward Parker

PROVIDENCE — In the wake of revelations that the National Security Agency has assembled a massive database of domestic phone calls, the Rhode Island affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union is objecting to a bill poised to pass the General Assembly that the group says would allow phone companies to provide the police your cell-phone location for any reason at all.

The bill, modeled after a Kansas law, would require phone companies to provide police with cell-phone location information in emergencies that might result in death or serious injury. The bill is called the Kelsey Smith Act, named for an 18-year-old Kansas woman who was abducted from a department store in 2007 and murdered. Four days after her disappearance, authorities found her body after the phone company provided location information for her cell phone. Twelve states have passed versions of the act and another seven are considering similar laws.

ACLU executive director Steven Brown said his group supports the use of cell-phone location information in emergencies but has concerns about bill’s wording. “It goes well beyond the clear intent of the bill, which is to deal with emergency situations,” Brown said.

The first section requires phone companies to give cell-phone location information to law enforcement agencies without delay “in an emergency situation that involves the risk of death or serious physical injury.”

The next section, though, allows phone companies to establish “protocols by which the carrier could voluntarily disclose device location information.”

That section, Brown said, would allow phone companies to give the police customer location information without needing a reason.

“If the revelations in the last week have taught us anything, we should be very wary of general sharing of phone information with the government,” he said. “Now is not the time for the State of Rhode Island to essentially be putting its stamp of approval on the mining and disclosure of personal information.”

Phone-location information can reveal whether a person frequents a certain drinking establishment, cheats on a spouse or sees a doctor who treats specific conditions, according to Brown.

“

“It amounts to a fundamental privacy issue …,” he said.

“That’s totally different from what our intent is here,” said Rep. Raymond H. Johnston Jr., the Pawtucket Democrat who sponsored the bill in the House. “The intent is … something that’s emergency related. It’s not just to ping somebody’s phone just for the sake of finding their location for whatever reason.”

Johnston, a Pawtucket police detective who has been on the force more than 24 years, said the bill is designed to eliminate delays in tracking a missing person’s phone. “If this happens, time is ticking,” he said. “The most important thing is the first three hours. It would give us the ability to pinpoint not the exact location, but a pretty good area.”

Johnston said he focused the bill on emergencies and omitted a section — used in other states — that would allow the police to obtain cell-phone locations to track criminals. “I didn’t want to cloud the issue.”

Johnston, who said he understood the ACLU’s concern, said he drew the language from the Kansas law and that he wasn’t exactly sure why the section about voluntary disclosure was in the bill, except that it might be needed to allow the emergency disclosures.

Johnston’s bill — and identical legislation introduced in the Senate by Sen. James E. Doyle II, also a Pawtucket Democrat — have passed in their respective chambers and are nearing floor votes in the opposite chambers, the last step before going to Governor Chafe to be signed.

Johnston said it is too late in the session to amend the bill to address the ACLU’s concerns.

“It would kill it for this year,” he said. “I’d like to see it pass this year. We can always come back in January and address anybody’s issues.”